Q1/ You have problems with tape and mondo?

Try setting the blocksize
Use -b 8192 with mondoarchive command and then during restore use at the CLI the following:

mt -f /dev/st0 setblk 8192

Different drives use different default block sizes, so experimentation with the number may be required.

Q2/ Why isn't mondorescue working for fedora core 4 and XFS?

Answer provided by Paulius Pazera (ppp_at_glds.com)
'strip xfs.ko' causes problems, makes module unloadable. Had to disable StripExecutable? in /sbin/mindi to make it work. Most like it's fc4
issues.

Q3/ Can I use mondorestore in a Microsoft Virtual Server environment?

Answer provided by Albert Smith (albert.smith_at_genexservices.com)
I have had sucess doing a mondo restore into Microsoft Virtual Server using IDE instead of SCSI. Apparently the virtual scsi controller
does not play nice with RHEL3 or 4 using the AIC7XXX or AIC7XXX_OLD it goes into a continual reset.

Since I was coming from a SCSI enviornment to an IDE enviornment I had to boot via the mondorescue iso and go into Expert mode.

Build all LVM and non LVM partitions manually including swap devices and format them. Then load mondorestore and choose the interactive
mode.

Modify the mountpoints to point to the new hard drive in this case hda
DO NOT FORMAT THE MOUNTPOINTS
DO NOT ALLOW MONDO TO PARTITION EITHER

Then perform the restore it should all work fine. It did for me.

Q4/ How do I create my mindi Failsafe kernel?

First you need to work with a kernel+modules supporting your hardware both at backup and at restore time. Then copy your kernel under
/usr/share/mindi/vmlinuz and create a tar file compressed with bzip2 called lib.tar.bz2 containing all your modules from /lib
Example:

Q5/ How do I restore my mondorescue set on a new hardware platform?

First you need to understand that mondoarchive will create your bootable backup set using your running kernel, or the one you precise or a
failsafe kernel.
Then, whatever you choose, that kernel should be able to support during the boot phase of your mondorestore step your new hardware. Which
means either you create a monolithic kernel containing all the drivers needed for that (mainly IDE, SATS, SCSI, RAID controller and/or
network drivers if PXE or NFS restore) or you ensure that the right drivers will be loaded during the restore phase by adding them to your
/etc/modules.conf file or whatever it is for your distribution.

Q6/ Does mondorescue handle LVM2 ?

Now if you encounter a problem with it, it might be due to the fact that older versions of mondorescue didn't support correctly the usage of
/dev/mapper/vg*. So you needed to adapt your /etc/fstab in order to make mondorescue happy, as here:

/etc/lvm/lvm.conf by default in Ubuntu (but not 8.10+) and RHEL 4.0 (and maybe other distros) contains the following line:

filter = [ "a|/dev/hd[ab]|", "r/.*/" ]

This either needs to be changed to:

filter = [ "a|/dev/[hs]d[ab]|", "r/.*/" ]

or

# filter = [ "a|/dev/hd[ab]|", "r/.*/" ] (i.e. commented out)

Q7/ Why does mondo 2.10/mindi 1.10 gives an error message ?

These versions are NOT maintained anymore and should NOT be used. Refer to the development paragraph upper.

Q8/ Can I restore some folders from an ISO image without burning it and booting from the CD?

Sure, Run /usr/sbin/mondorestore from the command-line prompt (without booting from the CD) then you should be able to select ISOs as a
source & choose the files to restore. (Answer from Hugo Rabson hugorabson_at_sbcglobal.net)
Sure, Loop mount the iso image, then find the files you need in the afio balls and restore them. (Answer from Mark Nienberg
mark_at_tippingmar.com)

Q9/ Can I manually restore a Linux server with an mdadm-created RAID1?

Note that with mondo > 2.2.1 this should not be required.

Solution provided by Christian von Stebut <christian_at_von.stebut.org>
While the steps worked for me, please keep in mind that I'm not a guru. So if you have any suggestions for improvement, please tell me.
You'll find some remarks and todos in the notes, please add, delete and comment to your liking.

Basically, I add mdadm and some other files to the image and start restoring manually using "expert". Once the RAID has been manually
created, I then continue with an interactive restore, being careful not to partition and format the disks again. At the end follows a
manual grub installation - I haven't gotten it to work automatically.

Modify /tmp/mountlist.txt
Get rid of "/dev/sda(i) raid raid number" entries
There should only be the /dev/md(i) entries left.

Create RAID1 Devices

Zero Superblock
If old disks, which have previously been a member of another array, are used to build the new array, then the superblock present on the
disks has to be deleted. This can be done with mdadm --zero-superblock DEVICE.
On the VM, PATA disks are used, so DEVICE = /dev/hd{a,b}{1,2,3,4}
On a real machine with SATA disks, DEVICE = /dev/sd{a,b}{1,2,3,4}
For example

mdadm -zero-superblock /dev/hda1

The disks need to be partitioned, with a type of fd (Linux raid). To create the partitions with sfdisk:

sfdisk /dev/hda < /sda_ptable
sfdisk /dev/hdb < /sdb_ptable

!ToDo: sfdisk doesn't like the partition and will not create without --force.
If forced, it will grumble about partitions not ending at cylinder boundaries.
How to automate correctly? (Maybe have a look at how mondo does it presently)

Remark: sfdisk --no-reread can be used to disregard existing file systems on disks.

Remark (excerpt from "mdadm --create --help):
Before devices are added, they are checked to see if they already contain raid superblocks or file systems. They are also checked to see
if the variance in device size exceeds 1%.
If any discrepancy is found, the user will be prompted for confirmation before the array is created. The presence of a '--run' can override
this caution

!ToDo: This will take some time. If scripted, how does one detect the end of the process?

Remark: Failure due to not enough disk space on VS. If there is not enough space left on the Virtual Server disk to grow the 2nd disk
during resync, the process will fail and the disk in question is marked as failed.
Steps to recover:

Your best bet are the official Debian packages. Andree, the Debian maintainer, is usually also on the mailing list. Look at DistributionPackaging
If you want to use the packages made upstream for Debian/Ubuntu?, you need to know that numbering schema are different between upstream mondo (2.x.y) and Debian packages (2.xy),so you should adapt your /etc/apt/preferences file to avoid updates of mondo with apt-get with indeed older versions. Do the following:

After that apt-get configuration modification, execute "sudo apt-get update", and then you can launch Synaptics. First, in order to be sure that Synaptic will choice the latest version from ftp.mondorescue.org repository and not the one from Ubuntu/Debian? repository, for mondo and mindi you have to select "Force Version" in the menu "Package", then select the version from ftp.mondorescue.org instead of the Ubuntu/Debian? one. After that you can install mondo through Synaptic.

If the Ubuntu update manager still notify that update to "a new" 2.24 Mondorescue Debian version is available, launch Synaptics, select "Package" menu, and check "Force Version", if it is not ftp.mondorescue.org, select it. You can also check the policy through "apt-cache policy mondo".

Mondoarchive Options (switches) advises

Be sure, on recent Ubuntu versions (8.04+), to use the -S and -T switch to locate temp files in a sufficiently big enough file system ; by default /var/run is used and seems to cause problems on Ubuntu (on which /var/run default size is 500 Mo).

If occurs "FATAL ERROR. Your system uses a UUID partition ...install findfs|blkid|vol_id", there is a problem between the swap and the /etc/fstab content. Even the swap maybe not used, check it through "free" command. A solution is to replace in /etc/fstab the swap UUID by the swap dev/xx (that can be found through "sudo fdisk -l"), it can be done for "local" partitions.

Mindi uses "syslinux -s" to make an USB media bootable, but it fails with syslinux v 4.02 (syslinux bug).
It is solved since syslinux v 4.03, but Syslinux v 4.02 is still used by Ubuntu 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04.

Also, ldlinux.sys is missing in the root of the USB backup hard disk made by mondoarchive.

A solution is to replace in mindi shell-script "syslinux -s" by "syslinux --stupid" which works well.

Another solution is to run the following command after mondoarchive execution.

Example, if USB device is /dev/sdb:

# syslinux --stupid /dev/sdb1

Q12/ Why doesn't my LVM based system re-boot correctly after restore?

On older version (pre-2.2.1) It may be due to the fact that grub has not been restored correctly. Use the hint of Q9 for grub re-instalation. In short:

grub --batch
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)

Q13/ After restore my Windows installation on NTFS is not bootable. I get an error saying "A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.". How do I get my windows back?

The solution for this is to use gparted (and possibly qtparted) to make the NTFS filesystem slightly smaller and then extend it to the
partition size :again. The underlying issue is apparently that fdisk is writing incorrect :partition information. A proper fix is being worked on.

Other users may want to patch their mondo code (< 2.2.1) at libmondo-archive.c line 1083 by removing the free(tmp) which is at that line in that file.

Q15/ I need a pair of 1440kb boot + root floppies but they are not getting created. How can I get them?

There are in fact two things involved here: A bug in mindi and lack of documentation.

Before SVN revision 381 (branches) and 382 (trunk),respectively, mindi would delete 1440kb floppy images right after creation. So, this
is fixed in mindi 1.0.7. Secondly, mindi may need to be forced to create 1440kb boot and root floppies.
For this purpose, 'FORCE_DUAL_FLOPPIES=no' needs to be changed to 'FORCE_DUAL_FLOPPIES=yes' in mindi (around line 73 or so).

Q16/ Why does mondoarchive takes so long to backup my system?

It may be due to a huge sparse /var/log/lastlog file. In order to trim it, do the following (as root):

Q19/ Why is there is no x86_64 RPM packages ? Should I use i386 RPM packages instead ?

You should NOT use i386 packages, as you'll encounter compatibility issues. You should instead download the src.rpm and rebuild them as per DistributionPackaging
As of 2.2.4, most of the recent distributions are also covered in their x86_64 version and packages are now provided for both i386 and x86_64

Q20/ I get error messages like size 4096, block-18446744071562067968, b_blocknr=2147483648 what is the problem ?

You may be using a default minimum blocksize for RAM disks of 4k (Fedora kernel 2.6.18* and higher, e.g., RHEL5, ...) so try to add ramdisk_blocksize=1024 to your boot command at boot prompt of isolinux when booting your mondorescue media.

For example:

boot: interactive ramdisk_blocksize=1024

Another way to solve it is to edit the file /usr/sbin/mindi and add the ramdisk_blocksize to the line of additional boot parameters. Then make a new backup.

Solution provided by Kathy Durkin

As of mindi 2.0.0 this is done automatically by mindi.

Q21/ Why doesn't mindi work correctly on Ubuntu Dapper ?

It has been noticed that (K)(X)Ubuntu have seemed to stop including the

mtools package in their standard distros from Dapper onwards so those who use Ubuntu will have to "apt-get install mtools".

Solution provided by James D. Robinson

Q22/ Why doesn't mondorestore work correctly on OpenSuSE 10.2 ?

First, It seems that OpenSUSE 10.2 packaged mondo and mindi but did not include the now required mindi-busybox. Get it from ​ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/suse/10.2
Second, ext2 capability isn't included in the OpenSuSE 10.2 kernel. Up to version 1.2.1 of mindi you may want to apply the following patch to /usr/sbin/mindi:

Q25/ Why is the network broken after restoring on Debian (Etch+) or Ubuntu ?

Could be a bug that mangles some file(s) in /etc/udev. Check this file

/etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules

or

/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

and verify that eth0 is assigned to the correct hardware address, that is
MAC serial number.

Other files that may need verification, if they exist are

/etc/udev/rules.d/25-iftab.rules
/etc/iftab

Q26/ Why is my kernel doing a panic at restore time, when it works perfectly at archive time ?

Currently mindi forces the acpi mode to off. Version 3.x will allow you to change that in a configuration file. In the mean time if this causes a problem with your hardware platform, edit /usr/sbin/mindi and change the variable ADDITIONAL_BOOT_PARAMS at the begining to read:

Q27/ Why my RHEL4 packages made from src.rpm for x86_64 do not work ?

You may be using an old version of rpm for RHEL4 x86_64. A bug was there since U4 which make the macro _sysconfdir point to /usr/etc instead of /etc. Thie is fixed in the latest version of rpm provided by RedHat. Be sure to up2date your system before building your packages. More info on that bug at : ​http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2007-0315.html

While:<kernelImage> is one of: expert, iso, compare, nuke (iso is the default if you just press enter)<eth device>: the network interface to use (eth0 for example)<ip>: the ip address<netmask>: the netmask<broadcast>: the broadcast address<gateway>: the gateway ip address

Q35/ Why isn't my OBDR tape working on ia64 ?

At restore time, you may need to use the /dev/nst0 device instead of the classical /dev/st0 device name so that your tape is handle correctly.

Also you may need to change VT (ALT+F2 e.g.) in order to modify the way the tape drive is working (changing mode from OBDR - USB CD boot emulation to tape mode) by passing the command similar to:

Q36/ Why is my SLES 10 restore blocking at fdomain ?

You need to remove that driver from the loaded driver if you don't need it.
One way is at backup time to use the DENY_MODS variable in mindi (see the example in mindi)
A second way to do it, is to exclude it at restore time, by adding to the boot prompt line the parameter denymods=fdomain
Example:

At restore, the variables can be checked through Alt-F2 and the following command: set | grep -E 'TERM|LANG' ; usually there is only TERM='linux', but TERM=vt100 or TERM=vt220 work well too.

There is also a mondorescue text mode (no GUI) ; to get that mode, instead of "interactive", you have to type "interactive textonly".

Q38/ Which versions of mindi and mondo are compatible ?

Mindi Version

Mondo Version

2.0.7.x

2.2.9.x

2.0.6

2.2.8

2.0.5

2.2.8

2.0.4

2.2.7

2.0.3

2.2.6

2.0.2

2.2.6

2.0.1

2.2.5

2.0.0

2.2.5

1.2.4

2.2.4

1.2.3

2.2.3

Q39/ Can I use other network protocol than NFS for backup/restore ?

Since version 2.2.9, mondoarchive needs a new option to provide the protocol type to be used for network backup/restore. If for example you want to use sshfs as a communication mean, you need first to add support for that fuse based filesystem to your distribution, then use that protocol in mondoarchive CLI. Following example is for a RHEL 5 based machine:

Be aware that "syslinux -s /dev/sdc1" will not make bootable the USB device through the Debian and Ubuntu distributions that use syslinux 4.02 (Ubuntu 10.10, Ubuntu 11.04, Debian Squeeze), until Canonical and Debian decide to upgrade to syslinux 4.03. Meanwhile, the solution is to replace it by: "syslinux --stupid /dev/sdc1".